


A Fish by Any Other Name

by stupid_drawings



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Humor, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 09:43:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupid_drawings/pseuds/stupid_drawings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock gets some fish for a case and regrets naming them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fish by Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Winter_of_our_discontent, not britpicked yet because I am trying to post all my finished fics before Series 2 ends and kills us all. Oddly enough, I wrote this before Series 2 had even started filming, so I was extremely pleased that Sherlock did not know Lestrade's first name. This was originally written as an anon kinkmeme fill, but I have long since lost the link to the prompt or the original post of it. De-anon-ing because why not?

Sherlock finally had the fish tank set up the way he wanted it. The large rectangular tank, even he would admit, was quite unwieldy. He had decided it would work best running down the length of their table. Placement decided, he began the task of filling the tank.

After checking all the levels and temperature, he decided it was safe to add the new specimens. The clear buckets the fish were transported in would also be useful after the fish were out of them. Yes, they would be great for watching decomposition rates, Sherlock thought happily.

Sherlock was seated at the table monitoring the fish to make sure they were fine in their new home and that they did not try to eat each other (always a risk), when John came down the stairs. He was running on morning autopilot and set about making tea and toast. After a few minutes he walked into the living room, set Sherlock’s breakfast and tea in front of him and sat down with his own. It was not until John glanced up to look at Sherlock and instead looked up at a large red fish eye that John noticed the quite large tank taking up most of the table.

He opened his mouth to ask, but Sherlock cut him off with an explanation. “The middle of the table is the sturdiest and longest space in the flat. Beside the floor, of course, but I do not want to risk anything falling in the water.”

John leaned in to look closer at the two fish. They were oval-shaped with silver bodies and a red tinge on their bellies. The little fins, fleshy faces, under-bites, and red eyes all combined to make two spectacularly ugly fish. Knowing what John intended to ask next, Sherlock went ahead and answered.

“ _Pygocentrus nattereri,_ they are for a case.”

John continued watching them swim around.

“What are their names?” John asked.

Sherlock looked confused. “They do not have names. They are fish.”

“You should name them. People name pets.”

“They are not pets, they are for a case.”

“They are in our living room. On our table. If I have to stare at them while I eat, I think they should have names.”

“Fine. John and Lestrade.” Sherlock sounded annoyed.

“What?”

“Their names. No sense making up new ones when there are perfectly good names already at my disposal.”

“Oh,” John just stared at the fish some more, then blurted out, “You do know Lestrade has a first name, right?”

Sherlock gave John a long-suffering glance before answering, “I know his blood type, too, but I do not call him by it. Besides, this Lestrade is a fish, it does not even know the concept of a name so it stands to reason that it will not be offended by being given a surname.”

John stared at Sherlock through the water, his face tinted green and warped from the refracted light.

Knowing it was a really stupid question, but curious anyway, John asked, “Which one is John?”

Sherlock dropped the rest of his toast into the tank. John and Lestrade started to tear at the food with small pointy teeth, biting and attacking each other for the biggest piece. John slid his chair back in horror, realizing what kind of fish _Pygocentrus nattereri_ were. Sherlock had swept past, leaving his dirty dishes on the table and heading to his room. He leaned out of his door and gave his delayed answer with a smirk, “John is the one with the scar on his gill.” The door clicked and locked behind him.

John spent the next hour thinking about how he had ended up as the kind of man that had piranhas on his dining room table.

 

Sherlock was sitting at the table with a dead skinned rabbit and a knife. He had not yet managed to sneak a hand out of the morgue for his intended experiment. He was feeling particularly sour after finding that the corpse he managed to sweet-talk Molly into letting him examine without supervision had been a double amputee. How unfair. He told Lestrade and John about it and took their counterclockwise swimming to mean they agreed.

He was taking out his frustrations hacking away at the rabbit and watching the piranha devour the meat he dropped in the tank. They were proving to be as good as the garbage disposal. But after a large quantity of the rabbit had been eaten, John and Lestrade had started to ignore the food in favor of each other. John went belly-up and for a brief moment, Sherlock panicked. But before he could do more than reach for the pH test strips, the reason behind the flip became clear as Lestrade swam onto John. Sherlock watched the piranhas mate with more fascination than was strictly necessary. He even took a picture with his cell phone.

John cleared his throat, and Sherlock realized his flatmate was sitting in his chair and had been for the last half hour. Sherlock had the strange feeling of being caught doing something bad as he averted his eyes from the mating fish. He found he did not want to look at John, human John, but forced himself to anyway, and the detective found himself blushing. Perhaps using readily available names was a bad idea after all.


End file.
